Wednesday, October 3, 2012

June 25 - oil, lemming

While walking around on the tundra you often see oil slicks where natural oil has welled to the surface

Today was chilly and foggy in the
early morning, a morning that was brightened up bt the pancakes that Brad made
for everyone! A nice treat – thanks Brad!

Scott and I then headed out plot
searching the fives, which consists of walking W-shaped patterns across eighty
50m­2 subplots – forty walked each. It takes quite a while, but is a
rewarding investment! Today it gave us ten nests on plot, and another two just
off, totaling a respectable even dozen for the day!

The low point of the day was right
after we started, when the rain on the horizon bore down on us with a vengeance,
forcing us to walk over a mile back into a cold rain whipping along sideways
into our faces due to the 35kt+ winds that came with the inclement weather. By
the time we got back we were thoroughly drenched, but the parts that mattered,
my electronics, were dry at least.

The view over our tents late in the day when it was nice out - flowers in the foreground!

It is pretty foolish that the
primary energy that we rely on for technology, electricity, is susceptible to water, what most of our world is made of. Don’t you think it could have been
thought out a little better before basing our whole world on it?

No more rain after we ventured back
out post-lunch, and most of the afternoon was even sunny! Highlight of the
afternoon was capturing a Brown Lemming, a different species than the usual
Collared Lemmings I would catch after dinner under the tents.

2 comments:

The densities are so low that you don't really ever just stumble across nests - the way that we find nests is by flushing the birds off of them when we get too close, and then going to the spot that they flushed from and finding the nest.